Funding Offers

During your years at Queen's, we will ensure that you have the following minimum financial support. This support usually includes some combination of a teaching assistantship (assisting in a course) or teaching fellowship (instructing your own course); graduate awards, bursaries or competitive fellowships from Queen's; research assistantships or other supervisor support; and competitive awards and fellowships from governmental agencies, such as SSHRC and OGS.

In recent years, our minimum funding has been higher as the Department always endeavours to increase this. The most up to date funding can be found at School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs: Funding Packages and Awards & Bursaries. You can also contact our Graduate Chair in the Department of English.

For the PhD program, we have a 4-year funding package with some opportunity for funding in the 5^th year. In addition to our 4-year funding package, there are opportunities for employment with the teaching fellowship.

As a part of our professionalization seminar, all graduate students are coached in grant-writing techniques and apply for external funding from agencies such as:

• SSHRC (whose awards are usually $20,000 or $35,000 per year)
• OGS (whose awards are $15,000 per year)

Additionally, incoming graduate students who win federal government tri-council awards are automatically provided a $5,000 (MA, MPhil) or $10,000 (PhD) Tri-Agency Recipient Recognition Award (TARRA) from Queen’s.

Note: (1) Award support from Queen's University sources is variable and may be reduced or omitted in a funding combination when the guaranteed minimum is exceeded by awards granted by Canadian provincial or federal government sources. (2) Funding offers do not include tuition waivers. (3) All funding rules follow the policies of the Queen's School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs.

The Department administers conference travel awards for graduate students to present peer-reviewed papers at major professional conferences in their fields. For complete details and award amounts for the current academic year, see the application form.

Our Teaching Assistantships offer a competitive rate of pay and meaningful teaching experience. Doctoral students gain valuable training and increasing levels of pedagogical responsibility throughout their program as they normally progress from grading, meeting with students, and some lecture opportunities as Teaching Assistants in year 1 to regular seminar instruction as Tutorial Leaders in years 2 and 3, to designers and instructors of their own course as Teaching Fellows in year 4 or 5. The duties of Master’s level TAs are generally focused on marking and meeting with students. All Teaching Assistants and Teaching Fellows are represented by PSAC Local 901.